Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for and a method of processing an image based on an object region in the image.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, monitoring cameras have been becoming popular. Accordingly, an individual's appearance that is included in a video image captured by a monitoring camera in a public place can be easily seen by others. This has been becoming a problem from a viewpoint of privacy. As such, there is a great need for blurring a person portion of a monitoring camera video image or for displaying only a person who has entered a forbidden area and blurring other persons. There is also a need for displaying only an announcer and blurring other persons in not only the monitoring camera video image but also a broadcast video image in the public place, for example.
As a method of protecting privacy in the camera video image, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-191884 discusses a method of extracting a person region in a video image using a background image and performing blurring processing. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-62560 discusses a method of extracting a face region in a video image by face detection processing and displaying only a specific person by collating the extracted face region with a face image previously registered. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-130203 discusses a method of recognizing an abnormal behavior of a person in a video image and displaying only the person who has performed the abnormal behavior.
However, in the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-191884, the background image and the camera video image are compared with each other to extract a person region. Therefore, when an animal body other than a person is included in the video image or when a background is changed, the person and the other portion cannot be distinguished from each other. In the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-62560, a portion desired to be protected is displayed when a face authentication fails. In the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-130203, a portion desired to be protected is also displayed when a behavior, which is not abnormal, is falsely recognized as an abnormal behavior.